Webcast of 'Future of Shari`a' Now Available

01/30/07

Emory Law Professor Abdullahi An-Na‘im's January 29 lecture, "The Future of Shari`a: Secularism from an Islamic Perspective," is now available as a webcast. An-Na`im delivered the lecture to a standing-room only crowd at Emory University School of Law's Tull Auditorium. The event was the annual Currie Lecture, hosted by the Center for the Study of Law and Religion (CSLR). An-Na`im is a CSLR senior fellow.

Forty years ago, An-Na‘im was a law student in his home country of Sudan when he reached a personal deadlock over issues surrounding Islam. “I am a Muslim, but I couldn’t accept Islamic law. I couldn’t see how Sudan could be viable without women being full citizens and without non-Muslims being full citizens. I couldn’t live with this view of Islam," he said.

He knew that he needed a secular state to be a Muslim. “If I don’t have the freedom to disbelieve, I cannot believe.”

This conflict led to his exile from Sudan – and eventually to his joining Emory University where An-Na‘im now is a world-renowned Islamic scholar and author. He serves as the Charles Howard Candler Professor of Law and Senior Fellow in The Center for the Study of Law and Religion.

To read chapters from Professor An-Na‘im forthcoming book, The Future of Shari‘a, explaining his concepts of a secular state for Islamic societies and how the public and political role of Islam would be regulated, go to http://sharia.law.emory.edu/.

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